


Set of Burns

by Rennll



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Actually don't own the Game, Alternative Perspective, Emotions, Game: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Gen, Hurt, Kingdom Hearts Headcanons, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rennll/pseuds/Rennll
Summary: Defeat is ugly, especially when Ansem is the one who has lost.
Kudos: 3





	1. Before

A dream burns below the boy. Tails of smoke intwine themselves around the tower of the church, and fire casts a red glow on its mortar. It glistens against the mighty church bells that hangs in a cluster inside the tower, much like how it glistens against his hair, as if it too is made out of polished metal.  
The white hair is a similarity between Riku and him. You might trace the color to their shared origin, the Destiny Islands, where people without pigment in their hair are born from time to time. The boy wears his hair in silver however, while his own strands look as if painted with chalk, stark white even in the dark lands where he oft dwells. Ultimately, in both large brushstrokes and miniscule details, they differ more than have things in common.  
Xehanort’s youth, the one who adress Riku first, is a distracting presence beside him. If he had the authority he would have told him stay out of this encounter. Unfortunately, the youth is free to act on his own judgement. Ansem keeps his gaze on Riku, determinedly ignoring the onlooker.  
It has been a while since they last faced each other. Riku has taken that allowed opportunity to grow. Soon he won’t, without crossing into absurdum, be able to call him “boy” any longer. In the depths of his gut something is squirming at the thought of that: Riku passing into adulthood. Because it will make him less impressionable?  
A trite concern. With growth his power will mature and his body harden. The child form is soft and light, which does not suit him. Were he to pick Riku as his vessel now, he would doubtlessly feel more at home, the stolen body taller and more muscular. Possession at this juncture, however, is neither necessary nor probable, as Riku is not one to be lured into the same trap twice. More engaging a debate: will the maturing have extended to the mind? Having suffered through more than one harsh lesson of humility, has his narrow mindedness been stripped away, or is its deliminitating residue still clinging to his outlook like frost on window’s glass?  
It seems the latter. After the vibrancy of shock leaves them, Riku’s cat bright eyes become impenetrable gemstones, defiance burning hotter than the fire below. Ansem feels his gaze even as he leans down to pick up the sword that the crazed man-of-God had dropped.  
Yes Riku, your thought-gone enemy has returned, inner demon showing up in flesh of his own to continue his tormenting of you. The dreamworlds are amusingly fitting a setting for his reappearance. In a sense he is Riku’s worst nightmare.  
As he points the blade at his chest and repeats the lesson that he has told him from the very beginning, Riku looks ready to slash him apart. He does not attack however, only observes while Ansem gestures toward the blaze where the mad priest fell down, and warns him of letting himself be swallowed by darkness the same way.  
At the very least Riku has grown out his daming impulsiveness. Now he understands that you best not attack a being like Ansem recklessly; every second that you can postpone a conflict is crucial. It can be read in the way that the pupil fidgets; Riku is assessing. How much strength has he left? What might the enemy be thinking? Will the surroundings be to his advantage? Foremost, he must be wondering if his returned adversary holds the answers as to why he and his little friend ended up trapped within their own Mark of Mastery exam.  
Choosing to not attack immediately is not the same as acting amiably. When he tells Riku that he must accept the darkness, he spits “I follow the road to dawn” and summons his keyblade. It differs from the batwing that once slit Ansem's throat, a proper keybearer’s weapon now. Fresh from conjuring, it drips starlight. Like all keyblades it seethes in his presence, exuding a blazing hate that makes the very air feel sharp.  
A smile beckons at the edge of his lips. How much more skilled has Riku become? Testing his mettle against that indomitable spirit is a pleasure he have missed. This is not the ideal place for a fight however. Xehanort is aware of that as well, having explicitly told him not to engage Riku beforehand.  
– Still afraid of the dark, I see, the youth says what has been irritatingly obvious to Ansem from the start.  
After Riku was purged by his master’s strange machine, he must have stopped utilizing darkness to the same extent as before. Instead he distances himself from it, like a person who has decided to stop acknowledging the soles of his own feet. Where he locks it away, the darkness will simmer, until the day he has forgot everything he knew about taming it.  
Is his absence harming Riku more than helping him? That is a question that Riku will likely never want to consider. Not living with the overhanging threat of being consumed must feel like a relief, but what’s now to push him forward, force him to master the abysmal force within? The situation is infuriating. Riku is one step away from realizing greatness, the dark potential slumbering within him, scarcely comprehensible to his tragically limited mind.  
Would a test whip him into shape? Perhaps. Ansem has to remind himself to follow the script. Xehanort is ahead of him, ordering a black gash open that allows them passage out of the world.  
With a heavy clang Ansem drops the sword to the ground. The awkward thing is a far cry from the exquisite blades of shadow he can conjure with a thought. He gives Riku one last sharp look before following Xehanort.

– Do you want to play with the dream eater some more? Xehanort asks while they walk, not speaking as much as he is droning, as if he wonders about the meaning of his own words.  
His heart is much the same, an airy thing as it beats, holding no set pattern. Indecisive. It is different enough from the heart belonging to Xehanort seventy-or-so years in the future that the universe considers them two different people. If they run low on Seekers of Darkness the child could take a spot, and house a splinter of the old man’s soul. Hopefully he will ground himself and gain surety until such a time.  
The young is not at all the same as the old, yet whenever he speaks Ansem thinks he hears the grating saw blade that someday will sneak into his vocal chords. The sound scorches his flesh, a burn across the skin. His body can banish every blemish and every wound; why is pain still felt?  
He answers Xehanort with a gruff sound, that hopefully conveys nothing but the annoyance of a grown man tired with the nosiness of the young.  
– I doubt you will let anyone else get between Riku and yourself, Xehanort continues.  
Ansem already knows that Xehanort looks down on him in the same impersonal way that a person would a handful of insects he has put in a jar to observe; now he hears the sliver of something more in his tone.  
Obsession. Could that be the reason he would not let him encounter Riku alone? Did Xehanort think he would have acted ahead of time, turned mindless like a shadow the moment he set eyes on his former vessel? He sees the accusation in the tension of the youngster’s shoulders, reads a new meaning in the various glances he has received, and pulls a deep breath to keep his temper from flaring. He can accept that his interest in Riku has shifted from the-means-to-an end it was in the beginning, to an impractical focus, like how Riku himself has veered from being a tool to becoming an obstruction.  
To prove Xehanort wrong; to prove to himself that he is wrong, should he say right now that anyone else is free to battle Riku? He keeps his silence and lets Xehanort pull ahead of him. Obsession perhaps: Riku is the only thing left that he can lay claim to, the only thing that belongs to Ansem. If only he can make him bow. He looks down onto his palm, and opens and closes the hand in an attempt to chase away the unnerving burn that lingers there.


	2. After

The pit of sleep that he pulled Riku into for their battle drags Ansem under after he loses consciousness. When he wakes up it is because the darkness is crushing his ribcage. Each breath he takes is tar. Realisation hits too late, that with this corporal body comes the risk of getting trapped in the too- deep, like a fly in amber. If the replica anchoring him to the present is pulverized his heart will be sent back to the time of his demise.  
That prospect trashes instinctual panic through him. The guardian, who has been stationary, lacking the presence of mind to realize the danger, reacts to that emotion. On his wordless command it wraps an arm around him and pulls with all its strength. It struggles, in spite of all it possesses in physical might.  
Hacking roughly, all the while attempting to remind his body that it’s not actually suffocating, Ansem provides the guardian that extra burst of energy it needs to escape the epicenter. Agony twists through his body, all magic reserves within bled to a desert dry — depleted during his confrontation with Riku. First an uphill battle, then an impossible one after the boy began wielding light and darkness in tandem, converting dark matter into a blinding white blade of perseverance.  
The guardian stops at a layer where, while still heavy on shoulders and lungs, the darkness does not swirl as thick. From the bandaged mouth rattles breath after diminished breath. More so worse- for wear is he, soaked in cold sweat and draped like a flayed skin across the arm of his thrall. Thank good fortune that he is deep enough to hide this state from his comrades.  
The consequences were Riku to defeat him should have stood clear. Had he been pushing them out of mind? Does that make him an arrogant fool, or a reckless one?  
A cry quivers in the depths of his throat, growing in size, akin to the roars of frustration that he has let loose when incessant meddling from children and animals would derail his plans. This sound, however, never grows beyond what might be called a bemoaning wail. How pathetic. Slamming his jaws together he pushes the offending noise, back down his throat, like an unsightly bubble of sewage. It can fester in his stomach if it so wishes.  
Is this new body to blame? The circuits between emotions that the heart creates and the body’s response is hard to adapt to when you're used to existing as just the one. When Input from the physical world is limited to solely the hearth, thoughts are sparser and feelings clearer. You do not need to doubt who or what you are any more than the sun or the wind doubts what they are.  
Stuck in a body there is a disconnect. Each message that the heart sends him passes through filters of primal urges and the hopeless mess of incongruous second guessing that the brain constitutes as thinking. What is this he feels? Where does it come from? How can these maggots best him constantly?  
Perhaps his inability to label each emotion is a sign of him crossing that line between heartless and humanity which he has been straddling for so long; becoming more man than monster.  
Back when he first took human form feelings still seemed simple, and possessed simple names — anger, joy, pride — never more of them than he could count. (Not sorrow. With how incompatible that emotion is to darkness he doubts he has felt proper sorrow for a long time) Each emotion spilled raw into him, filling him to the point where he had to unleash waves of energy just to receive an outlet.  
With his body drained, unleashing temperamental darkness- hazards are hardly what he wants to do. He wants to retch.  
Insufferable, nauseating, suffocating, squirming larvae burrowing into his innards and spreading decay on his tongue. Each breath of air heightens the illness. He wants to retch.  
This time around he will not be able to soothe his bruised pride with excuses: the boon of a keyblade that is his natural enemy, and the help the wielder receives from powerful companions. This time Riku has decimated him without such allies, and on a battlefield of Ansem’s own choosing. Should he blame his failure on the dream eaters? Creatures that range from balloon hamsters to elephants that make honk-a honk-a noises while ramming him on skateboards? That certainly makes defeat less humiliating.  
“You are part of my heart now. Part of the light.”  
Could words like that fill him with anything but fury? The disregarded vessel claiming ownership over him; flaunting the very opposite of his nature like a cage he has willingly put himself within.  
When Riku said that, Ansem had raged. For once it was allowed to be that simple.  
Now he feels like drizzled out coal: singed from fury, then drenched. He feels stiff; he feels cold.  
The guardian vanishes. He doesn’t want even its non- cognizant eyes to look at him. Groaning, he pushes himself to a sitting, then stares into the abyss as if expecting to see something other than swirling shadows. He could sit here an age and there would only be the darkness, throwing itself back and forth like the gales in a vicious storm.  
His mind insists on conjuring memories from the fight in the vortex, letting him see the moment light and darkness mixed impossibly across the keyblade, and Riku’s darkness, endlessly familiar because traces of his own essence still lingers in it, turning from black to soft indigo; fueling the light it should be rejecting. Tapping into greatness indeed.  
Whatever it is that twists inside of him … If he could get rid of it by ripping out the heart in his chest, he would.  
— Of all the misguided ideas that could have festered in your skull, he mutters, curling tighter as the cold in his bones turns frigid.  
There’s no use in searching for warmth within himself. The only thing burning right now are the invisible scars.  
He is alive; so is Riku, who must have resumed chasing his trapped friend. As long as both of them draw breath, fate will have them fight once more. Yet he cannot ignore and let be unnamed the feeling that this battle was the decisive one.


End file.
